Recent weeks have felt jumpy. Scatter shot, but productive.
Calves are booster vaccinated and branded.
With the exception of one lamb that seems chronically puffy, all are castrated, docked, ear-tagged, and vaccinated. Nearly all have received a 2nd dose of vaccine, a boost against Clostridial diseases and tetanus. That job sounds benignly passive until you understand that we function without any sheep facilities. Working Prairie Island lambs is, indeed, western. We snatch individual lambs from among groups of ewes and lambs, carry or pedal them into close proximity to the barn door escape hatch, and scoot them out the door after the doctoring routine. Thankfully, most of our ewes are docile; they form placid barriers to greased-lightning lambs bent on evading our snatching forays. As for the puffy lamb, he has received several doses of ginger solution, a dose of bicarbonate of soda, and a dose of Clostridial anti-toxin. I remain at a loss about what ails him, but I think a regular burp of cud would be a step toward cure, and he is feeling and looking better.
Then there are the tomato and pepper seedlings mentioned in my previous blog. Nurtured through single-digit temperatures and blizzards, over half of them succumbed to what I suspect was a greens-hungry pack rat. All seedlings were thriving at my evening watering hour in late April; at dawn, 100% of the Early Girl tomatoes, 75% of our favorite Sweet Baby Girl cherry tomatoes, 50+% of the hybrid sweet peppers, and most of the hot pepper seedlings were gone, demolished, obliterated, with no remnant trace of leaves or stems. Our rat-bastard, dark-of-night raider left unscathed only a few, never-before-tried, full-sized tomatoes. So much for visions of summertime bushels of flavor-rich beauties to use liberally and share generously. We hastily moved our sparse inventory of survivors into a garden cart and the little red wagon from Katrina's youth. Depending on wind and temperature, we wheel them out of the garage during the day and regularly adjust their position to maintain all seedlings at an angle to capture sunlight.
As for Jury duty, if the clerk of court (whose name I shall not mention) is vindictive, I may be saddled with duty until death removes me from the potential juror pool. As per instructions on my April summons, I called the prescribed phone number to receive a voice message with further instructions, As per those further instructions, I showed up at the courthouse bright and early Monday morning (after busting ass to get AM chores done before heading to Great Falls). At the appropriate office, I was pointedly ignored by employees. Finally, one of them, hands on hips for added emphasis, informed me that I should have read Step 2 in the instructions and called on Saturday. If I had, I would know that jury selection and the trial had been postponed. I whipped out my summons and read from it, aloud and emphatically, those Step 2 instructions telling me to call after 6 PM on Friday. "Well," she countered, "the message was changed on Saturday." How grateful I am to be retired and have no outside job demands, Because of that, I had time--time to document the dismissive insolence of said office employee and share my experience with the clerk of court. It was cathartic! Like I stated earlier, I may be a potential juror until eternity, but I will neither tolerate insolence in taxpayer-funded employees nor let it go without response. Though that trip to Great Falls was an inconvenient waste of time, it had one benefit: I picked up a case of Ménage à Trois Midnight wine previously ordered. Cheers to retirement and a judicial system that is the best ever devised, despite a bad apple employee or two.
Having channeled my inner rage into a temperate and carefully-crafted letter to the clerk of court, I was energized to take a preliminary shot at a half-sheet painting of a sheep, one of my long-term subject matter nemeses. Fly-away Killer Curls is the result. As of now, I'm too close to it for analysis and critique, but it challenged me and brought back vivid memories: bringing Curls home from Canby, Oregon as a yearling comfortably ensconced in the back of my old Subaru Forester, his Overall Grand or Reserve Champion Fleece awards year after year at the State Fair. (Was it four or five years? I don't remember.), his gentlemanly manners when being handled, and, finally, his penchant for efficiently killing other rams, a skill that ultimately led us to cull him. He was quite a guy; I'm glad I have photos and a desire to capture his essence in watercolors.
Calves are booster vaccinated and branded.
With the exception of one lamb that seems chronically puffy, all are castrated, docked, ear-tagged, and vaccinated. Nearly all have received a 2nd dose of vaccine, a boost against Clostridial diseases and tetanus. That job sounds benignly passive until you understand that we function without any sheep facilities. Working Prairie Island lambs is, indeed, western. We snatch individual lambs from among groups of ewes and lambs, carry or pedal them into close proximity to the barn door escape hatch, and scoot them out the door after the doctoring routine. Thankfully, most of our ewes are docile; they form placid barriers to greased-lightning lambs bent on evading our snatching forays. As for the puffy lamb, he has received several doses of ginger solution, a dose of bicarbonate of soda, and a dose of Clostridial anti-toxin. I remain at a loss about what ails him, but I think a regular burp of cud would be a step toward cure, and he is feeling and looking better.
Then there are the tomato and pepper seedlings mentioned in my previous blog. Nurtured through single-digit temperatures and blizzards, over half of them succumbed to what I suspect was a greens-hungry pack rat. All seedlings were thriving at my evening watering hour in late April; at dawn, 100% of the Early Girl tomatoes, 75% of our favorite Sweet Baby Girl cherry tomatoes, 50+% of the hybrid sweet peppers, and most of the hot pepper seedlings were gone, demolished, obliterated, with no remnant trace of leaves or stems. Our rat-bastard, dark-of-night raider left unscathed only a few, never-before-tried, full-sized tomatoes. So much for visions of summertime bushels of flavor-rich beauties to use liberally and share generously. We hastily moved our sparse inventory of survivors into a garden cart and the little red wagon from Katrina's youth. Depending on wind and temperature, we wheel them out of the garage during the day and regularly adjust their position to maintain all seedlings at an angle to capture sunlight.
As for Jury duty, if the clerk of court (whose name I shall not mention) is vindictive, I may be saddled with duty until death removes me from the potential juror pool. As per instructions on my April summons, I called the prescribed phone number to receive a voice message with further instructions, As per those further instructions, I showed up at the courthouse bright and early Monday morning (after busting ass to get AM chores done before heading to Great Falls). At the appropriate office, I was pointedly ignored by employees. Finally, one of them, hands on hips for added emphasis, informed me that I should have read Step 2 in the instructions and called on Saturday. If I had, I would know that jury selection and the trial had been postponed. I whipped out my summons and read from it, aloud and emphatically, those Step 2 instructions telling me to call after 6 PM on Friday. "Well," she countered, "the message was changed on Saturday." How grateful I am to be retired and have no outside job demands, Because of that, I had time--time to document the dismissive insolence of said office employee and share my experience with the clerk of court. It was cathartic! Like I stated earlier, I may be a potential juror until eternity, but I will neither tolerate insolence in taxpayer-funded employees nor let it go without response. Though that trip to Great Falls was an inconvenient waste of time, it had one benefit: I picked up a case of Ménage à Trois Midnight wine previously ordered. Cheers to retirement and a judicial system that is the best ever devised, despite a bad apple employee or two.
Having channeled my inner rage into a temperate and carefully-crafted letter to the clerk of court, I was energized to take a preliminary shot at a half-sheet painting of a sheep, one of my long-term subject matter nemeses. Fly-away Killer Curls is the result. As of now, I'm too close to it for analysis and critique, but it challenged me and brought back vivid memories: bringing Curls home from Canby, Oregon as a yearling comfortably ensconced in the back of my old Subaru Forester, his Overall Grand or Reserve Champion Fleece awards year after year at the State Fair. (Was it four or five years? I don't remember.), his gentlemanly manners when being handled, and, finally, his penchant for efficiently killing other rams, a skill that ultimately led us to cull him. He was quite a guy; I'm glad I have photos and a desire to capture his essence in watercolors.
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